Where did about 16 billion yen disappear? CEO found out that the wallet of the virtual currency exchange which bankrupted due to sudden death was empty

In a case where the trading operation became impossible because CEO of Canada's largest virtual currency exchange " QuadrigaCX " died without revealing the secret key of cold wallet used for the transaction, finally the identification of cold wallet A report that it succeeded was announced. However, every Wallet said that the balance was completely empty, and the way the virtual currency of about 16 billion yen, which was thought to be sleeping without being handled in the cold wallet, was previously a mystery is.

Ernst & Young Inc. Restructuring Information
https://documentcentre.eycan.com/Pages/Main.aspx?SID=1445

Quadriga's Cryptocurrency Wallets Are Empty, With Fate Of $ 137 Million In Doubt: NPR
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/06/700651500/crypto-mystery-quadrigas-wallets-are-empty-putting-fate-of-137-million-in-doubt

The beginning of the thing was that Gerald Cotten, co-founder and CEO who had done most of the transactions of QuadrigaCX alone, died in December 2018. Cotten died without telling anyone the cold wallet's secret key that QuadrigaCX thought was used for the deal, so QuadrigaCX had about 147 million dollars (about 16 billion yen) of custody from customers It became impossible to access the currency, the transaction work was delayed and eventually bankrupted.

The possibility of a total loss of about 16 billion yen in virtual currency, due to death of the exchange CEO Wallet can not be accessed - GIGAZINE

Access to this cold wallet was required to repay the debt of more than 20 billion yen carried by Quadriga CX, but the only clue was to be found in Cotten's notebook PC with the password , Analysis was done. Ernst & Young, a major accounting firm that had been appointed for audit by court order, announced on March 6, 2019, "We identified six cold wallets that seemed to have been used for transaction management" .

In the six identified cold wallets, it was thought that several million dollars (hundreds of millions of yen) of the virtual currency that QuadrigaCX kept from customers was managed. But Ernst & Young reported that "The discovered cold wallet was empty a few months before Mr. Cotten's death."

According to Ernst & Young, five of the six had no transaction record at the end of April 2018, and the balance was zero. For the other one, Cotten was used to transfer the bit coin to the Quadriga CX's hot wallet in December 2018 when Mr. Cotten passed away, and this also seems to have had zero outstanding.

Three other cold wallet addresses identified as being used for QuadraCX trading were identified, but none of them had empty contents. Ernst & Young asked Quadriga executives, QuadrigaCX asked why they did not deposit bit coins to Wallet after the spring of 2018, but no one was able to answer.

In addition Ernest & Young reported that "14 user accounts were created outside the normal transaction process at QuadrigaCX". The transaction history with this 14 accounts seems to indicate a "considerable amount" transaction, and there are traces of trading and withdrawing virtual currency to exchanges not related to Quadriga.

by Credit: BeatingBetting.co.uk

Especially, it has been found that the company was held by multiple exchanges, which was held by QuadrigaCX.

Founder Sudden death virtual currency exchanges quadriga large amounts of earmarium to other exchanges | cold wallet from April 18th sky
https://jp.cointelegraph.com/news/quadrigacx-reportedly-stored-eth-on-kraken-bitfinex-and-poloniex-research-finds

It seems that Quadriga's platform data was stored on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, but the account with access authority was not the company but the person of Mr. Cotten. Mr. Cotten's wife Jennifer Robertson said he was an administrator of property, but still the AWS side does not allow access to the data.

Mr. Cotten in the whirl died in December 2018, "Mr. Cotten died on the way of Indian trip due to complications of Crohn's disease who had been suffering for years.His child care for children in need in India We opened the facility, "Robertson announced in January 2019. However, various timing such as Mr. Cotten's death and its announcement, transaction of cold wallet, etc. are producing speculation that "Mr. Cotten is carrying away a huge amount while counterfeiting his own death" Bulletin Board Site Reddit A lot of information is given to the QuadrigaCX community .

Ernest & Young continued to investigate the movements of bit coins centered on the 14 user accounts found, taking into consideration the possibility that the riot was caused by an internal person's crime I am going to go out.